A letter to my future husband

plz send me a good hinge message or I won't know it's you!!

I think about you all the time.

I take guesses at how we’ll meet. Will we reach for the same bag of kale in Trader Joe’s? Will we have a drunken one night stand that turns into true love? Will you be a Hinge date that I only went on begrudgingly? Truthfully, I don’t care. I don’t care if we meet on a dating app or start as enemies or have a horrible story or one worthy of the Rom Coms I watch on repeat. I just really hope I find you.

This may sound crazy, but I’m starting to worry I won’t.

For the majority of my life, I assumed that finding love, getting married, and having kids was all a given. That it would happen without me trying. That you, my future husband, existed far off into the distance, and you would enter my path at the perfect time—after I’d had just enough independence and slutty years, but before I started getting stressed about my egg count. 

I always told my friends and family that I wasn’t stressed about finding you, because I was a “great candidate for marriage.” That’s how I’d put it. “I’m not worried, I’m the perfect candidate.” I’m a solid communicator, I’m naturally nurturing and maternal, and my taste in men has always seemed to conveniently match those who were realistic for me and in my league. “I like super average looking men who are really nice,” I’d say. I never wanted the bad boy, or someone who was mean to me. With a picker like that, how could I not find a husband?

But over the past year, something has changed. I’ve been getting rejected a lot—and am getting way more insecure in dating. I started a blog about my sex life—but commenters told me that no one would want to marry a sex writer. I’ve hooked up with a lot of guys who later decide we’re not a match—and realized that I’m falling into a very specific box with romantic prospects. I hate to say it, but I no longer feel like a great candidate. 

I know I’m still young. Like, really young. I don’t even know if my slutty years are over! But I’m starting to get worried I won’t find you. I don’t even know if I’m ready for you, frankly, but what if when I’m am, it’s too late? I’ve made my way through a good deal of men at this point (slut!), and no one even compares to you. To who I hope you are. And honestly, none of them seem to like me that much. I really hope you like me a whole lot. 

I hope we have sex on the first date, and you still want to wife me up. I hope that neither of us play it cool. I hope you don’t jump to conclusions about me or my career. I hope you make me feel like a really fucking great candidate. And I hope you’re kind. Like, really kind and generous and thoughtful. But not so kind that you don’t like to gossip. Gossiping together is a must.

I hope so badly that you feel like my soulmate. I’m not sure I really believe in soulmates deep down, but I hope that I love you so intensely that you feel like mine. I hope we have a great big love that makes our kids grossed out. Oh, I hope you want kids. And I hope you are a fantastic dad who is patient and sings Taylor Swift and makes silly games out of nothing. I hope that we can be happy going on family bike rides and ordering takeout and living in the suburbs and getting high when the kids go to sleep. I hope you make me laugh forever.

I’m so scared that I’m dreaming too big. That I’m wishing for someone that isn’t out there. Or worse, that I’m not the marriage material I always thought I was. I know that I present as a Samantha Jones—the sex-obsessed friend who only cares about banging and boys. But in my truest form, I feel like Charlotte York—the hopeless romantic who wants to drop everything and marry a sweet Jewish guy. Can my job just be my passion but not my identity? Can I keep writing about hookups and find a husband? Am I doing research or attracting all the wrong people?

I like to put on this hard exterior as a slutty, independent woman who doesn’t mind transactional relationships and dates that never go anywhere. But I’ll always be wishing it’s you on the other side. Sometimes that is just scarier to admit.

I’m terrified that a decade will go by and I’ll decide that I never really wanted kids or a husband, and that I could be the cool aunt who dresses fabulously and sleeps around constantly. But that could never be true. I want you more than anything. I haven’t met you yet, and I already miss you. God, I hope I’m not jinxing myself.

I’m walking around with my heart wide open. 

I look for you in bars and in Trader Joe’s.

I recite vows to you in my head.

I listen to music and imagine myself walking down the aisle—and I almost feel like I can make out your face.

I know I said I was looking for you, but if you wouldn’t mind, maybe you could try to come and find me? I don’t feel like sharing my geographic details here, but hopefully you can guess them. You can find me on Hinge too, but please send a good opening message. Nothing generic like, “Hey, what’s up?” or else I may not know it’s you.